Analysis of Aspergillus nidulans germination, initial growth and carbon source response by flow cytometry

In this work, flow cytometry was utilized to analyze the initial vegetative growth of the model fungus Aspergillus nidulans as measured by the number of events increasing size and internal complexity. It was established the ideal parameters for the analysis of conidial populations, whose growth was followed after germination in glucose or sucrose. While glucose in culture increased growth several magnitudes in comparison to control cultures in saline, growth was less intense in cultures amended with sucrose. Results indicated that flow cytometry could be a useful tool to study fungal germination and initial growth since it allowed rapid identification of different populations by means of their increasing in size and granularity with good reproducibility and without the need for direct observation and count of individual cells.